


Lump in the Throat

by ChessHatter



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23610547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChessHatter/pseuds/ChessHatter
Summary: Papa....don't go.
Kudos: 10





	Lump in the Throat

**Author's Note:**

> Another Anne-centric drabble, this time focussing on the moment Anne sees her father leave the Tower from her window.

Her first reaction upon seeing her father walking freely across the courtyard of their prison was one of immense relief; at the very least one member of her family that had walked through these accursed doors would be able to leave relatively unscathed. She could not see him very clearly from so far a distance, but apart from looking a bit dishevelled, Thomas Boleyn seemed to be well, or at least as well as could be expected given the circumstances.

She watched him, as he stood forlorn next to the scaffolding where men earlier had been scrubbing away the stains left behind by her brother's blood.

Poor George.

Poor, poor, stupid, arrogant, lovable George.

How she had screamed when she saw his body fall. How she had howled and yelled and cried.

But her father, her father would be spared. She did not dare guess what Henry had taken from him, apart from his only son and soon his last daughter.   
She dared not think- but thoughts stuttered in her brain when her father - _papa!_ \- turned around and looked up..up up up, all the way to her window. She pressed her hand against the glass, a wave, a greeting, a goodbye, she did not know.  
He was looking at her, but she could not properly see the expression on his face...solemn? Perhaps a bit lost? She could not be sure.

So she smiled. She smiled at the man in the courtyard, her father, the king's previous father in law, _her papa_.  
She smiled and curled her fingers against the window, because if she didn't smile, she would cry. 

And she did not want her papa to see her cry. 

A finger twitched as if to wave, to beckon her father to come closer, to... _but he is turning away._  
 _Her father is turning away. No hand raised in greeting (_ goodbye _), no twitch of his lips, no nod, no...no...nothing._ He turned away and continued walking. No acknowledgement given to the lost daughter, nothing given to her to remember him by in what could be - _would be_ \- her final hours.  
She, who had given so much, and he, who now when it mattered the most, still had nothing to give.

As she stares at his back, her hand curls in on itself, the corners of her mouth sink back down and she feels her eyes grow moist. She blinks rapidly to keep them at bay, but the lump in her throat grows with every step she sees him take, walking away from her, for the last time.   
Her catching breath fogging the window, the only trace of her left as she quickly removes herself, chastising thoughts bumping against each other in her head, reprimanding herself for ever having expected any different.

_Papa...don't go._

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for the jumping from past to present tenses at certain points, but it felt right this way :)


End file.
